Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	church_n	discipline_n	doctrine_n	4,176	5	6.2312	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56836	The profest royalist his quarrell with the times, maintained in three tracts ...	Quarles, Francis, 1592-1644.; Quarles, Francis, 1592-1644. Loyall convert.; Quarles, Francis, 1592-1644. New distemper.; Quarles, Francis, 1592-1644. Whipper whipt.	1645 (1645)	Wing Q113; ESTC R3128	63,032	100

the better colouring of their malice well affected to the Cause All which in time will so encourage all Sects Factions Hypocrites and make Heresie so bold strong in this Kingdome that the true Protestant Religion will be under the detestable name of Popery even turned out of doores for company or at least so little favoured that it will be forced to shrowd it selfe in corners as those Sectaries did before these troubles were I but when things are setled and Iustice done upon the Popish Faction these Sectaries with their Sects will vanish like the Mist before the mid day sun and a true reformed Religion will be establisht to us and our Posterity You seeme by this Objection but a young State Physitian and a meere novice in the curing of a disease of this nature In some cases where the undisturbed humors keep their bounds distempers are quickly evaporated and being scatterd through the whole body every part breathes out some and Nature being able to truckle with the disease by her owne power relieves her selfe and in a short time rectifies the Body But upon a continuall confluence and gathering head of lawlesse humors she is so weakned that she hath no power to resist and lesse heart to struggle with her enemy but is forced to yeeld But the time you prefixe for the subduing of these numerous Sects is first when all things are setled secondly when the Land is cleared of Papists 1. For the first It is all one as if you had said When the body is in good health you will easily find a cure A rare Physitian In the meane while you will connive at this continued confluence of humors which makes it at length incureable 2. As for the second Take heed while ye goe about to cure a Fever you run not the Body Politick into a Dropsie with too much Phlebotomie But you will first cleare the Kingdome of Papists And who be they In your Accompt all such as stand for Episcopall Government a Government coetaneous with this our almost out-dated Religion All such as approve of the Book of Common Prayer a Forme establisht by many Acts of Protestant Parliaments All such as are passively obedient and loyall to his Majestie a duty commanded by Gods own mouth Of the Clergie all such as will not preach for blood although Ministers of the Gospel of Peace All such as will not take the Covenant to suppresse Bishops although they have formerly sworn canonicall obedience to their Ordinary All such as wil not encourage Subjects to resist the power of their naturall Prince although having taken the Oath of Allegeance and the late Protestation And to conclude all that have not contributed willingly bountifully and continually to this Warre and in a word that have any considerable Estates to pick a hole in If all Sects and Sectaries be not supprest till then we are like to have a comfortable Reformation But in case you onely meane such Papists as owne and acknowledge the doctrine of the Church of Rome Tell me what course would you take with the● Either you must banish them or disinherit them or take away their lives 1. If banish them It must be done either with the Kings consent or against it If against it you resist the power and he that resisteth shall receive damnation Rom. 13. If with it you make the King guilty of perjury who hath sworne to protect all his Subjects in his Coronation Oath 2. If disinherit them It must be done either according to the known Lawes of the Kingdome or against them According to the Lawes ye cannot for there is no Law for it If against them you transgresse what you pretend to maintaine in all your Declarations 3. If take away their lives It must be done either for a Cause or without a Cause If for a Cause shew it that the world may be satisfied If without a Cause you are guilty of murther Which course soever ye take you have not Christ for your example who quietly suffered the two Caesars being Idolaters not onely to possesse that Kingdome but to usurp it because God permitted them and permissively placed them there When the Disciples askt our blessed Saviour Didst not thou sow good wheat Whence commeth it that there be tares His answer was The evil one hath done it His pleasure being demanded whether they should weed them up his Reply was No Let them alone untill the harvest and then he would separate them A good deed may be ill done when either against command or without warrant Though God hath permitted the evill one to plant Papists among us yet he hath not authorized us to root them up nor yet to take the lives of any untill their actions come within the danger and compasse of the establisht Lawes of the Land We have presidents for the rooting out of Idolaters in the Scriptures which warrant us to doe the like You finde it no where but in the time of the Law at which time God immediately commanded it which kind of Warrants are now ceased Again In the time of the Law some were accompted Strangers And strangers had not the priviledges that brethren have Vsury was lawfull to be taken of strangers not of brethren Now in the times of the Gospel Christ hath made us all Brethren and called us by his own name Christians and what was lawfull then to be done to strangers is unwarrantable now to be done to Christians We are brethren Then Protestantisme and Popery may be consistent in one Kingdom and Gods name may be harmelesly prophaned with Idolaetry and superstition in the same place where it is truly and sincerely worshipt Your inference is not good It is one thing for a Prince to protect his subjects and an other to be partaker with them or to allow of their superstitions Kings cannot enforce Consciences though pitcht upon a false Religion All that Magistrates can do against them unlesse for Seducing which a particular Statute made Treason is to punish their purses for not observing his Statutes respectively or for exercising their Religion contrary to his Lawes But well it were if such a necessity of Connivance had no such subject to work upon How happy had it been for this unlucky kingdom if his Majesties most prudent and pious offer two yeare since propounded to us had been accepted in this particular That all the Children of his subjects of that Religion should be taken from them and educated in the Religion of the Church of England By which means the whole Kingdom in a short space of time would have been peaceably reduced to an Vnity in Doctrine And if the same course were taken with othe Srectaryes an Vniformity in Discipline also But our Kingdom must not expect an universall and through Reformation in all particulars till Catechismes be more strictly used and the entercourse of Embassadours which cannot simply be avoyded and Legers be restrained and strict statutes made

dum opprimitur proficit dum laeditur vincit dum arguitur intelligit tunc stat quum superari videtur OXFORD Printed by LEONARD LICHFIELD Printer to the Vniversity 1645. THE NEW DISTEMPER AS it is in a Principality or in a Republique The further it swerves from the first Constitution and Fundamentall Principles the faster it declines and hastens towards Ruine So is it in the Church The more she deviates and slips from her first Foundations the more she growes into Distempers and the nearer she comes to Desolation It hath been the wisdome of all Princes and Free States of former times to carry a watchfull eye upon the growing Inconvenients of their Kingdomes and Republiques That as evill manners daily breed diseases so the continuall making and execution of good lawes should daily be prescribed as Remedies● lest by too long neglect and sufferance the Body of the Commonwealth should grow so foule with superannuated evils and the humors waxe so prevalent that the desperatenesse of the disease might enforce them to as desperate a Remedy It is no lesse prudence and providence in those that are appointed by the Supreme power as under him chiefe Governours and Overseers of the Church to be very circumspect and not onely faithfully to exercise their Ministeriall Function by due and careful preaching of the Gospel but likewise diligently to discharge their office in governing that is in making wholsome Ordinances and duly executing them That the Inconveniences that grow daily in the Church may be daily rectified lest by too long forbearance they gather head and so become either incureable or else capable of Remedy with too great a losse The naturall Affection I so dearly owe to this my native Country to which my soule alwayes hath doth and will for ever 〈◊〉 as much happinesse as heaven can please to give permits me not to think our Church in so forlorne and desperate a Case but that it may be capable of a wholsome Cure Yet Sense and Reason flying with the naturall wings of Love and Duty bids me feare that those unnaturall Humors Pride Negligence Superstition Schisme and that Harbinger of Destruction Security have so long been gathering and now setled in her that she cannot without long time and much difficulty or else especiall providence and divine mercy be restored For the hastning whereof accu●sed be that unworthy Member that shall not apply the utmost of his endeavour and diligence and not returne the best of those Abilities he suckt from her in health to her advantage in this her great and deplorable extremity of Distemper The wearyed Physitian after his many fruitlesse experiments upon a consuming Body advises his drooping Patient to the place of his birth to draw that Ayre he was first bred in The likelyest way to recover our languishing Church is to reduce her to her first Constitutions that she may draw the breath of her first Principles from whence having made so long a journey her returne must take the longer time The Physitian requires not his crazie Patient to take his Progresse thither in a rumbling Coach or a rude Waggon they are too full of motion for a restlesse body nor to ride Poste the swiftnesse of the passage makes too sudden an alteration of the Climate but in an easie-going Litter the flownesse of whose pace might give him a graduall change of Ayre The safest way to reduce our languishing Church to her first Constitution is to avoid all unnaturall Commotions and violence in her passage and carefully to decline all sudden alterations which cannot be without imminent danger and to use the peace-ablest meanes that may be that nothing in her journy may interrupt her and prove too prejudiciall to her journyes end The disease of our distempered Church Cod be praised hath not as yet taken her principall parts Her doctrine of Faith is sound The Distemper onely lyes in her Discipline and Government which hath these many yeeres 〈◊〉 breeding and now broken forth to the great dishonour of her Mysticall Head Christ Jesus to the unhappy interruption of her owne Peace the Legacie of our blessed Saviour to the great disquiet of our gracious Soveraigne her Faiths Defender to the sharp affliction of his loyall Subjects her faithfull servants and to the utter ruine and destruction of this Kingdome the peacefull Palace of her Glory 1. As for her Discipline In the happy dayes of Edward the sixt when all the Romish Rubbish and Trumpery was seavengerd out of this the new Reformed Church and the wholsome doctrine of undubitable Truth was joyfully received into her gates being for many yeeres clo●'d with Ignorance and Error the piety and providence of her newly chosen Governours whose spirituall Abilities and valour were after characterd in their owne blood thought good in the first place to make Gods Worship the subject of their holy Consideration To which end they met and finding in the Scriptures no expresse forme of Evangelicall Discipline in each particular and therefore concluding it was left as a thing indifferent to be instituted according to the Constitutions of every Kingdome where Religion should be astablisht they advised what Discipline might best conduce to the glory of God and the benefit of his people They first debated and put to the question Whether the old Lyturgie should be corrected and purged or whether a New should be contrived Cranmer then Archbishop of Canterbury a pious moderate and learned Father of the Church and not long after a glorious Martyr finding that the old Lyturgie had some things in it derived from the Primitive Church though in many things corrupted conceived it most fitting for the peace of the Church not to savour so much of the spirit of contradiction as utterly to abolish it because the Papists used it but rather enclined to have the old Garden weeded the Errors expunged thereby to gaine some of the moderater sort of that Religion to a Conformity But Ridly Bishop of London a man though very pious yet of a quicker spirit and more violent and not many yeares after suffering Martyrdome too enclined to a contrary Opinion rather wishing a totall abolition of the old Liturgie and a new to be set up lest the tender Consciences of some should be offended The businesse being thus controverted it was at length voted for the purging of the old to which service were appointed Doctor Cranmer Archbishop of Canterbury Martyr Goodrick Skip Thirlby Day Holbeck Ridley C●x King EDWARDS Almoner Taylor Heynes Redman Bishop of Ely Hereford Westminster Chichester Lincoln Rochester Martyr after B. of London   Deane of Lincoln Martyr Exceter Westminster Master Robinson Archdeacon of Leycester Mense Maio 1549. Anno Regni Edwardi sexti tertio Whereof three were famous Martyrs and the rest men of unquestionable sanctity soundnesse and learning which being done was authorized by Act of Parliament in that blessed Kings reigne Edw. 6. and with a full Consent received into the Church of England confirmed by

●overnours for the house of God Are not the two great Nurseryes of this kingdom like to flourish when the chiefe Plants are pulled up by the roots and onely the●e Crabstoc●s suffered to prosper and beare their own naturall fruit Our fathers have eaten the Grapes and their childrens teeth will be set on edge They that have been the Pillars of our Religion are hewn down and our falling Church is shored up with these inconsiderable spars They that grappled with and foyld the stoutest Champions of the Church of Rome are imprisoned wanting both bread and liberty And such as neither did nor could nor durst appeare in such a quarrel are crownd with their Reward They whose learning and orthodox piety made England the glory of nations and the envy of forraigne kingdoms are now disgraced and ruined and th●se that learning made not capable of a Degree advanced and honoured to the great dishonour of this kingdom Nor can I heare forget how much this staggering Church of England owes to her pious and religious Nursing Father and her faiths royall Defender our gracious Soveraigne whose wisdom moderation and tender piety amongst other of his princely vertues hath so manifesty showed it self in not following the example of those whom my heart bleeds to call his Enemyes and blazing the new Ministry of this kingdom as they have done the old Had his provoked passion publisht a Century to the eye of all the world of those morall vices hideous blasphemies infirmities and faylings of the Clergy of the one party as they did on the other how would the Church of Rome and all the Enemies of the Gospel of Jesus Christ have hissed and derided our Religion that by the generall Confession both of Prince and people had such Monsters to adorne it How would forraigne Christians have been frighted at the very name of the Church of England How would the stile of Protestant have become the Obloquy and By word of all Religions It was not for want of matter Report would have 〈◊〉 enough besides that which perchance would have made the truer history Nor was it scarcity of pen-men to paint their actions to the life Oxford had yet hath Pens sharp enough Ink that wanted no Gall Nor can I conceive how such nimble active and such salik fancyes here could have forborne it had not the wisdom providence of his Sacred Majesty laid upon them his restraining power By which it evidently appeares to those that are not obstinately maliciously blinded with the darknesse of resolved Rebellion that his Majesties solemne Vowes and serious Protestations for the maintaining the honour of the true Protestant Religion agree with his most pious Intentions and published Resolutions Had his secret affections been warpt or the least degree wavering from the Church of England or any whit inclining to the Romish superstition had the imaginations of his heart intended secretly an introduction of the Popish Religion how could his new design been better animated then by an inward dislike of the Protestant Religion how could that dislike have been better fomented and encouraged then by the Advantage the just Advantage taken of the generall corruption of her Ministry But the wisdom and tendernesse of his Piety stands silent in this behalfe and in his singular prudence hath not so much as taken notice or in any of his Declarations once reproved the uncharitable impiety of that scandalous Pamphlet for fear of further blazing it but rather suffering it to perish in its own filthines choosing rather to groane under the burthen of his faithfull and abused Clergie then by revenging and painting forth the crimes of the other party far more guilty to afflict Religion under the burthen of both Thus is the health of our languishing Church impaired thus is the body of our craz'd Government distemperd thus is the peace of our Saviours Spouse disquieted thus is the welfare of our English Sion determined Her Dove-like piety is turned to Serpentine policy her Unity to Division her Uniformity to Disorder her Sanctity to Prophanenesse her Needle-work robes to a particoloured Coate her honour into disgrace her glory into disdaine and her prosperity into destruction She weepeth in the night and her teares are in her Cheekes Among all her Lovers there is none to comfort her and all her friends have dealt treacherously with her Her adversaries are the chiefe and her enemies prosper for the Lord hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions Her children are gone into captivity before the Enemy and her gates are sunk into the ground Her Kings and Princes are among the Gentiles her law is no more and her Prophets find no vision from the Lord The Elders of the Daughter of Sion sit upon the ground and keep silence and have girded themselves with sackcloth The horne of her enemies is lifted up They spared not the persons of her Priests they favoured not her Elders they have laid wait for the breath of our Nostrils the Annointed of the Lord and servants beare rule over us Our Inheritance is turned to strangers and our houses to Alyants We drink our water for money and our woods are sold to us We have sinned and have rebelled therefore thou hast not spared For this our hearts our hearts faint for these things our eyes are dimme For these things I weep mine eye mine eye runneth downe with water Where O where are you all you that are the wisdom and Governours of this unhappy Island Where O where are you the great Counsell and grave Senators of this falling Kingdome Where O where are you the great Colledge of Politicall Physitians of this languishing Common-wealth Are ye all fallen asleep while we perish is there none to awake you Open your eyes unlock your eares and mollify your hearts Behold behold the miseries of your land and if Compassion be not banisht from the earth pitty O pitty the approaching Ruines of this your groanning this your native Kingdom Heare O harken to the sad Complaints of your afflicted petitioners and if your hearts be not of Adamant relent and let them not in vain petition for their lives Let the breath of this distempered Kingdome contracted into one extreame sigh move you to the speedy endeavours of a timely Cure Inquire into her Constitution Examine her distempers and reduce her to her first Principles Try no experiments upon a body so declined and let not the Acutenesse of her disease swade you to a desperate remedy Look O look back into the blessed dayes of Queene Elizabeth Observe what blessings we then had both by Sea and Land What plenty what successe what victories what honour abroad what unity at home and indeed what had we not that could make a Kingdome happy Reduce us O reduce us to that happy government and let not the eagernesse of a Reformation be a meanes to want men to be Reformed or matter for a Reformation Remember

Strumpets head and snatcht the Cup of poyson from her trembling hand what Palme or what Reward have they I shame to tell These like undaunted Champions endured the Brunt in dust and sweate and stoutly undertook the Cause whilest they like Trouts all day betook them to their Holds and now in the dark night of Ignorance prey upon the Churches Ruine They fish in Waters which themselves have troubled These these are they that lead silly women Captive and creeping into Widowes houses devoure them under a pretence of long Prayer Learnings shame Religions Mountebanks the vulgars Idols and the Bane of this our late glorious now miserable Kingdom D. Burges cap. 7. pag. 319. line 22. God made a Law that every word of an Accusation should be establisht by two or three witnesses This Law is revived by the Apostle in the Gospel and applyed to the Case of Ministers Against an Elder receive not an Accusation but under two or three witnesses 1 Tim. 5. 19. By an Elder meaning a Minister as Saint Ambrose Epiphanius and others rightly do expound it Pag. 129. line 9. It were therefore a most uncharitable and unchristian Course upon a bare Accusation of an Enemy to condemne a Minister before himself be heard and a competent number of Witnesses of worth produced against him Cal. How now Doctor doth your Guilt begin to call for more witnesses Are you tormented before your time The Law you speake on would in these dayes be nedlesse Our Ministers faults are now writ in their foreheads and as apparent as the Sun at noone whose leud looser Conversations are impudent Confessions and visibly manifest enough without farther Witnesses Our Crime-discovering Century is both Witnesses and ●ury and the pious Composer thereof a most sufficient Iudge But some there be so craftily vitious that they can keep their words and Actions from the eyes and cares of Men For such I hold a reasonable Presumption Evidence enough Others there be whose vices want no Witnesses but perchance their Witnessses as the too partiall world expounds it want worth and Credit Some measure worth by a visible Estate some by unimpeachable honesty of body or behaviour others by a religious demeanour according to establisht canstitutions whereas for my part If a poor handicrafts man or whose Infirmity denies him a through-pac'd honesty or whose piety is a little zealously refractory to establisht discipline nay be he a convicted Anabaptist or Blasphemer or what not in case it be for the Cause that brings an Accusation or appears a Witnesse against a Malignant Minister I question not but such a Witnesse may be valuable Repl. The Law denyes it Cal. But now the Law 's asleep all actions are arbitrarie But the ground of that Law was very just for as Theodores in 1 Tim. 5. sayes Because Ministers touch sinners to the quick it exasperates many against them in respect whereof their Accusations require many witnesses Eutichianus an ancient Bishop about the yeare 276. after Christ if Bishops retaine any credit more then a Turk Ep. 8. Episc. Syrill admonishes to weigh well the Accusation of a Minister because the faithfull execution of his Office gaines him many enemies He also proceedeth to disenable all Heretiques all suspected of Heresie excommunicate persons Malefactors Theeves Sacrilegious Adulterers that seek to Witches or Conjurers and all other Infamous persons In the 3. Councel of Laterane Vide Append. Concil Lat. 3. par 50. cap. 69. It was decreed That upon an unproved accusation of a Clerick his owne single oath should free him It was agreed in the 7. Councel of Carthage that all servants Stage players uncleane persons wanderers all that came uncalled all under 14. yeares of age and all that the Accuser brings from home with him shall be rejected as Witnesses against a Minister Another Decree of Analectus denyes the Accuser to be a witnesse or the witnesses to be such as are revengefull and must be cleare of all suspition In a Synod at Rome about Constantines time it was decreed No Deacon should be condemned under 44. able witnesses Such tender care was alwayes had of the accusation of a Minister But now Cal. your Tenets can in favour to your new fashiond pieties qualifie secret whoremasters open blasphemers and such as your selfe nay one single Accuser and a sorry one too will doe the feat D. Burges cap. 7. pag. 232. line 20. But what is every tatling Basket-maker or Butcher or mincing Shee a fit Judge of a Ministers doctrine and meet to reprove and confute him for it Is that Zeal which catches at pieces of sentences and then runnes away and gives out that he preaches false doctrine contradictions or Invectives to shame him to his flock Cal. Doctor if some of your Coat I name no bodie were as tender of your Lives as ye are of your Doctrines you would have fairer reports But your bent is to bring the vulgar to beleeve your words without Examination and then you 'ld preach them into what Religion ye list Could you but once work them to Implicite faith the Kingdome of Antichrist were more then halfe set up The horse that winces is galled somewhere or we account it the trick of a Jade that feares riding God hath commanded all to search the Scriptures and will ye take Pett if we examine the Doctrine you raise from thence Did our Saviour storme when the Sadduces reproved his words How often were his Doctrines traduced as false How often was his Authority questioned nay more denyed Yet he reviled them not Doctor stroke downe your stomack The closer you follow Christ the cheerfullier your flock will follow you But know in things so neare concerning us our mouthes shall be as wide as the faults be they of Potentates Generals or Princes and if they doe not what our Conscience tels us is their duties they shall not faile to heare on t Repl. Cal. I think Ignorance hath given thy tongue a Bribe thou playest her Advocate so well Both of their lives and doctrines Ministers must give account to God and his subordinate Authoritie and not to you Cal. you forget the Calling of a Minister He is your spirituall Father Cham was cursed for discovering his fathers nakednesse Put case your Minister should shew his nakednesse in some Error either of life or doctrine it were more modest piety for you to cover it with your silence or to recover it by your prayers then to upbraide Him with it Had you searcht the Scriptures as you ought you would as well have condemned the saucines of the Sadduces as the mildnes of our Saviour whose high Authority needed no Credit among men but our poor Ministers whom the least breath of a Mechanicks mouth is able now to ruine and undoe both wives and children without compassion have reason to be moved with such affronts But Cal. perchance you vindicate your own naturall father whilst you revenge your self upon your spirituall from whence ariseth this doctrine